Capitol Reef National Park
The second trip to Utah was the last trip that we had taken as a family. Instead of traveling place to place like we had done in the past, we decided to camp and explore one area without relocating. It was the off-season so we were able to set up our tents in a campground that sat atop this beautiful view below. We had the whole area all to ourselves!
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The image above was taken from the campground overlooking the valley below. The campground was on an elevated shelf overlooking the view here, the dirt road to the campground can be seen meandering through the desert.
There are deep ditches or washes that run through the area, and many in which the dirt road travels through. This wouldn’t be a place to be should there be heavy rain. We did have a storm one night when we were there. The wind blew pretty hard and my brother’s tent was pretty much laying flat. Fortunately, my tent was holding up pretty well.
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When the sun sets, the dust in the atmosphere creates a more reddish hue and it makes the landscape look more surreal.
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On the other side of the campground just a few hundred feet is a different scene all-together. An area called the “South Desert Overlook” is a spectacular view from above, and its wind-blown ‘castle-like’ pillars makes “Cathedral Valley” live up to its name.
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There wasn’t much of a sunset on this day, but there was a lot of dust in the atmosphere as you can see in the image that there is haze over the distant mountain.
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At bedtime, I set the camera up on a dead tree to photograph star trails. This is one shot, 6 hours long, taken on slide film, Provia 100F.
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Early that morning we got up and drove to an area in the park that is referred to as the “Junction”. This is where the road splits and goes into two different areas within the park.
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Not too far from the “Junction” was this hoodoo. We were exploring the area when we noticed this single hoodoo nicely lit by the sun. We made a mental note of the time and came back the next day to photograph this. This was one of my favorite shots from the trip.
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This family trip was my favorite and unfortunately the last. I had taken several trips alone since, but none were able to equal the fun from the previous trips that were made.
Cameras used on this trip: Mamiya RZ67 Pro II medium format film camera
Family photography trips taken
2005 – Utah and southwest Colorado (Durango)
2006 – Northwest (Washington and Oregon)
2008 – Colorado (Rocky Mountains)
2010 – Utah (Capitol Reef National Park)
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